Powers/Abilities
:
Atum possesses powers above any other immortal/god on Earth including
Odin, Zeus and Vishnu. He has superhuman strength, stamina, resistance to
injury and can tap into and manipulate incredible elemental /solar energies
which he can manifest as sunlight but with incredible destructive force.
He can also absorb the life energies of gods who have degenerated into demons,
but too much of these energies tend to cause him to transform into Demogorge,
a massive hulk with both energy-siphoning powers and the tendency to physically
absorb immortal/godly flesh into its body.

Atum can also fly and when
he does so he emanates light as bright as the sun. He also has incredible
resistance on a cosmic scale enabling him to resist the heat and pressure
it would take to reside within a star as with the sun of the
Earth.

History: (Avengers
I#187 (fb) - BTS, Thor I#301 (fb) - BTS, Thor Annual I#10, Silver Surfer
Annual I#2/7, Doctor Strange: Sorcerer Supreme#11/2, Conan the Barbarian I#245 (fb) - BTS) - Atum is the offspring of the female Elder God known as Gaea and the Demiurge,
the sentient life-force of the Earths biosphere. Having infused her
life-force into the planet, Gaea gave birth to Atum who began slaying all
the Elder Gods who had degenerated into demons and were killing each other
to survive and gain power. Despite
driving many of them to other dimensions, he absorbed so much of their energies
that he transformed into Demogorge and left the planet to extinguish their
absorbed energies.

(Iron Man Annual I#10/4 (fb) ) - Gaea realized
that for the mammals to survive, she had to protect them from the huge reptiles
and dinosaurs under the protection of the Elder God Set. Set manifested on
Earth and worked his will through all the ancient reptiles on Earth; they
began exterminating the mammals, but Gaea called upon Atum to slay Set and
drive him from Earth. This centuries long battle contributed to the extinction
of the dinosaurs (except, of course, in the Savage Land and some other places).
Eventually, there were not enough dinosaurs and huge reptiles on Earth to
sustain Set and he was driven into another dimension unable to return to
Earth.

(Conan: The Ravagers Out of Time - BTS) - Circa 18,500 BC, during the Pre-Cataclysmic Age, Kull and a time-displaced Conan and Red Sonja battle Rotath. The Pictish shaman Gonar invokes the names of numerous gods, demons and wizards to destroy Rotath, including the god Ra.

(Thor Annual I#10 (fb) ) - Over thousands
of years, from the Pre-Cataclysmic Age to the Hyborian Age to the Bronze
Age (see comments) Gaea gave birth to new races of immortals that became
the new gods of evolving human beings on the planet.

(Strange Tales I#70/5 (fb) - BTS) - Atum the creator who rose from the waters of Chaos,
has decreed to Ptah the duty to protect the Pharaoh's who obey Atum's laws.

(All-New Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Update#3) - Atum became Ammon Ra the Egyptian sun god. He ruled over the Ogdoad, the first incarnation of the Egyptian gods, but eventually they perished. Ammon Ra started anew with the Ennead and was succeeded as their ruler by his child Shu.

(Egyptian Myth) - At some point Ammon Ra seduced his niece (grandniece in the MU) Nut, who gave birth to Hathor, goddess of love and music, Khnum, the god of the Nile and Hapi, the god of floods.

When Nut's brother Geb succeeded their father
as Pharaoh of Egypt and he took Nut as his wife and queen against the wishes of
Atum-Ra, he forbade them to have children. He ordered their father, Shu, to
separate them and cast a spell that prevented her from giving birth on any day
of the week. Thoth, however, saw how miserable they were and
took pity on them and challenged Selkhet, the moon-goddess, to a game. Winning
the game, Thoth was able to take enough of her power to create five new days
which he gave to Geb and Nut to share together. For each of these days, Nut
gave birth to one child: Horus, Osiris, Isis, Seth and Nephthys.

(Avengers: Roll Call - Sekhmet profile/Myth) - When the people of Egypt rebelled against her father Ammon Ra, he claimed the Egyptians plotted
against him, so he goaded gentle Hathor into punishing humanity. Her bloodlust transformed her into the violent Sekhmet.

(All-New Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Update#4/Myth) - Sekhmet released such fury against her mortal foes that Ra feared she would destroy the human race.

(Legion of Monsters: Satana#1 (fb) - BTS) - To prevent another transformation into Sekhmet, Ra fashioned the Orb of Ra from Hathor's right eye.

(Egyptian Myth) - Eventually Atum-Ra became disenchanted with
mortals and decided to distance himself from them by ascending into heaven.
Impressed by Nut’s ability to deceive him, he enlisted her help to enter
into heaven, but she became so dizzy from the ascent that she had to return to
Earth.

(Thor I#300 (fb) ) - Circa 1000 AD Ammon Ra participated in a meeting of the Council of Godheads.

(Thor Annual I#10) - When several of the
gods of the dead lost their worshippers, they decided to merge their realms
in order to acquire new souls into their realms. Their ritual actually opened
a portal back to Atum and he returned to Earth as Demogorge. Sensing the
evil energies generated by the seven gods of the dead, he commenced with
absorbing them, but was fought back with representatives from the other gods
of Earth. When he tried to absorb Thor, the thunder-god caused a shift in
Demogorges palate and he expunged both the hero-gods and the death
gods before transforming back into Atum and returning to his home dimension.

(Hulk vs. Hercules: When Titans Collide#1 (fb)) - When the Titan Cronus escaped from Tartarus Demogorge flew over Olympus, warning the gods that if Cronus bested them he would feast upon their realm. However, Cronus was defeated by Hercules and Demogorge departed.

(Thor Annual I#14) - Thor called
upon Atum for help to defeat Set who had been called back to Earth by the
Deviant Lord Ghaur. Atum refused because he knew it would involve transforming
into Demogorge. Thor forced him to become Demogorge once more and was consumed
by the entity as a result of Atums wrath.
Thor managed to possess Demogorge,
asserting his will as the dominant one, long enough to defeat Set, and Atum
ended up releasing Thor from his body after realizing the passion and nobility
in his efforts.

(Incredible Hercules#117 (fb)) - Demogorge flew out of his lair. Horus recruited Atum/Demogorge
to join the God Squad to oppose the Skrull gods.

(Incredible Hercules#117) - Demogorge appeared at a meeting
of the Council of Godheads and joined the God Squad, departing in a ship through
the Dreamtime to reach the realm of the Skrull gods.

(Incredible Hercules#118) - With the Godsquad, Demogorge
stopped at the realm of Nightmare to ask for directions. They were each
tormented by Nightmare until Mikaboshi freed them, at which point they fled.

(Incredible Hercules#119) - The Godsquad
arrived in Skrull dreamtime, and they were assaulted by Gods conquered by Skrulls.
Kirby/Kerberos, the coyote pup of Amadeus Cho, was revealed to be a Skrull
imposter, and Demogorge consumed it. After Snowbird fought off the Skrulls' god
agents, Demogorge and the others were confronted by Kly'bn & Sl'gur't.

(Incredible Hercules#120) -
Demogorge devoured Sl'gur't only to be torn apart from within as Sl'gur't proved
to contain the essences of too many Godheads for him. Demogorge spine was
subsequently used by Snowbird to skewer and apparently kill Kly'bn.

BTS - He got better.

(Secret Warriors#10) - Demogorge was present when Phobos (Alexander Aaron), son of Ares, was found worthy by the Council of Godheads to be a god.

(Journey Into Mystery I#627 (fb)) - Demogorge attended the Devil's Advocacy to talk about the Serpent (Cul)'s actions on Earth.

(Mighty Thor I#12 (fb) - BTS) - Demogorge resided in a place outside space and time between the dimensions where forgotten gods went to die by being consumed by the God-Eater.

(Mighty Thor I#8) - Demogorge waited for God Arks, filled with the souls of dead gods including Thor's (died recently battling the Serpent/Cul), to descend into his maw.

(Mighty Thor I#9) - Demogorge consumed a God Ark while Thor partially remembered a previous encounter with the God-Eater. Thor eventually decided he didn't want to die that day and broke free of his crystalline shackles on the God Ark.

(Mighty Thor I#10) - Another God Ark found its way into Demogorge's maw and the God Ark with Thor and two other forgotten gods moved ever closer to their final destination. Thor freed the two other god souls and when he decided he wouldn't give up so easily his hammer Mjolnir was summoned to his extradimensional location. When it crashed into the God Ark and Thor held it in his hand once again he remembered who he was. Meanwhile another God Ark was consumed by Demogorge.

(Mighty Thor I#11) - Thor and his two amnesiac divine allies destroyed their God Ark and assaulted the gigantic Demogorge, who sucked them into his maw. Inside Demogorge the trio battled their way through the monstrous God-Eater. They found the graveyard of the gods inside Demogorge with forgotten god souls trapped in Demogorge's mind-clouding tendrils. Thor and his allies fought their way through the tendrils to reach Demogorge's heart.

(Mighty Thor I#12) - Thor kept hitting Demogorge's gigantic heart with Mjolnir causing agonizing pain to the God-Eater. A portal to Asgard opened when the God-Eater's heart was apparently destroyed.

Comments : Created by Alan Zelenetz and Robert
Hall

Alan Zelentz probably chose the name "Atum" since in real-life
history, the name comes from Egyptian culture, and the Egyptian pantheon
represents one of the oldest of the pantheons of human civilization. (The
Sumerian pantheon is also comparably old.) However, in the Marvel Universe,
the Egyptian pantheon may not be among the oldest pantheons, since the history
of the Marvel Universe includes two periods of relatively advanced civilization
that predated ancient Egypt-the Pre-Cataclysmic Era and the Hyborian Era.
You can read about the Pre-Cataclysmic gods under the comments to
Varnae's entry and see a refresher on
the
Hyborian Era gods here. (In addition,
Red Sonja III#4 indicated that a race of "titans" predated the "gods of Lemuria"
and "the lords of Atlantis", with two of these "titans", Byrina and Calanda,
named.)

It is conceivable, however,
unrevealed if Atum is the same as Atum-Re (the Egyptian counterpart to the
Olympian Ouranos).

Actually, Atums relationship
to Demogorge is rather similar to that between Dr. Bruce Banner and the
Hulk.

A caveat vis a vis the way
the gods are depicted in flashbacks to the Demiurge; Silver Surfer Annual I#2/7,
Doctor Strange: Sorcerer Supreme#11/2, and Set's Update '89#7 entry noted that the Elder
Gods did not have forms that human eyes could perceive, and it is only for
the sake of convenience that they are shown as humanoid, or in Set's case,
reptillian.

Y'Garon (or his brothers) and Belathauzer have never been
shown or mentioned by name in any of the retellings of the
Demogorge/Atum/Demiurge story. They were designated as one of the Elder Gods
that fled from Atum in the Demons entry in The Official Handbook of the Marvel
Universe Deluxe Edition#3 and this has been repeated in other sources, such
as the Marvel Age Midnight Sons Special.

Following off of an idea from Doctor Strange: Sorcerer Supreme#8, Doctor
Strange: Sorcerer Supreme Annual#2 (published around 1991) had Rintrah go through a list
of Doctor Strange's worst opponents, and note that a great concentration
of evil energy was left around after the Demogorge's battle with the Elder
Gods. In time, this energy split, producing Thog, Satannish(later revealed as a creation of Dormammu), Mephisto, and
other, newer demons.

The story
in Iron Man Annual I#10 indicates that Gaea allowed the dinosaurs to become
extinct because she did not think they could have evolved into sentient
lifeforms. In fact, several alternate Earths (or their natives) have been
seen that are populated by sentient races descended from the dinosaurs:
Earth-99476 (Excalibur I#9-10, #51); Cretacious Sam from Nightcrawler I#4,
Dino Knight from Moon Knight: Marc Spector#42, Dinosaur World from Devil Dinosaur#1
and Marvel Two-In-One#73, Kang-Mesozoic from Avengers I#296, a throwaway
world in Thor I#440, and a world seen in a story reprinted in Fantasy
Masterpieces#1. Gaea may have jumped the gun.

At some point Chthon bound some of Demogorge's power into a Darkhold page. The page was first seen in Darkhold: Pages from the Book of Sins#8, where it was given to Samantha Regent by the Dwarf. It was in her possession in Nightstalkers#8-9 until it was stolen from her. Blade retrieved it from the thief in Nightstalkers#10 and used it in a plan to destroy all magic. It turned him into Switchblade and Blade had to be stopped by the Darkhold Redeemers. The storyline named Midnight Massacre ran through Nightstalkers#10, Ghost Rider III#40, Darkhold#11, Morbius#12 and Spirits of Vengeance#13.--Markus Raymond

Because of his role, Demiurge could be the sky-god prevalent through
all of Earths myths just as Gaea was the mother-goddess of all of the
same. If so, he was the Hindu Purusha, Chinese Pan-Ku, Japanese In, Mexican
Hunab-Ku, Incan Tecumotzin, Slavic Rod, Finnish Jumala, Native American Gitche
Manitou and the Oceanic Papa all before he was killed in his role as Ouranos
by the Titan Cronus. The exceptions in this list would be the Asgardian snow
giant Ymir and his Hindu counterpart Himavat, the god of freshwater Apsu
who fathered the Mesopotamian gods with Tiamat, possibly Nuadhu who may or
may not be Nauda, and the African Buluku who may have been alive as late
as the 15th century AD when Damballah (Dam-Ayido) taught mortals
how to create zombies.

On the other hand, Gaea's entry in The Official Handbook of
the Marvel Universe Deluxe Edition#4 recounts that Greek myths state that
she gave birth to Ouranos as well; if this is true for Earth-616, then this
would rule out Ouranos as serving as the same entity as the Demiurge. Rather,
the Demiurge probably returned to a state of dormancy after the passing of
the Elder Gods, allowing his children to do as they would.

In the dictionary, a demiurge
is a sensible figure who fashions the world with sensible ideas and a demagogue
is a leader who champions for the cause of the people. Both come from the
Latin prefix demo- (as in democracy) meaning people as opposed to the term
demon. (Demon comes from the Greek daemon, any
of those spirits considered between god and
man.)

Incidentally, since other planets, such as those of the Skrulls,
Shi'ar, etc. have been shown to have biospheres as fertile as Earth's, it
stands to reason that other planets should have their own Demiurges and own
gods. So far, though, very few, if any, gods of alien worlds have appeared.
S'lgurt, the Skrull god of war, was depicted as a statue in the Super-Skrull
back-up in Fantastic Four Annual I#24, while the Skrull deity of death was
shown as a form assumed by Death (the cosmic entity) in Excalibur I#63. The
Shi'ar worship Sharra and K'ythri, a married couple, as elaborated upon in
Warren Ellis' Starjammers limited series. (The Kree worship the Supreme
Intelligence, who is a cyborg, not a god.) The Uncreated are a race seen
in the Ellis Starjammers mini-series and Excalibur I#90 who killed their
gods and exterminate anyone who continues to worship deities. In the Microverse,
the Worldmind of the planet Spartak (home of Acroyear) exists. Ego the Living
Planet stands in the unique position of being his own Demiurge. Strangely,
Ishtar, a Terran deity worshipped since
the Hyborian Age, has been invoked by extraterrestrials!